Supernatural: Everybody Hates Hitler

October 22, 2021 5:28 AM - Season 8, Episode 13

Sam and Dean find themselves battling a group of Nazi necromancers.

Quotes

The Golem: [about Aaron] He observes none of the mitzvahs. He labours on the Sabbath. He feasts on swine...
Aaron Bass: Everybody loves bacon!

Torvald: Long live the Thule!
Golem: [kills Torvald]
Dean: Or not.

Aaron Bass: [to Sam and Dean] When I went to high school, I sort of drifted... started getting off the academic track, and, uh, I kind of, um... I kind of smoked it.
The Golem: The boy smoked the pages.
Aaron Bass: They were these thin, vellumy pages. I mean, it was perfect for rolling.

The Golem: The Thule murdered your grandfather, boy. Find them so I can do my work. [smashes table]
Aaron Bass: Hey! Hey! We're renting here. *Renting*.

Dean: Well, now we know. Paper beats Golem; fire beats undead Nazi zombie freaks.

Eckhart: You can kill me, but you will never kill all the Thule!
Sam & Dean: [gun Eckhart down]
Dean: Well, that's a start.

Dean: You're being followed?
Sam: Yeah, I think so.
Dean: That's weird. I thought I was being followed earlier. Turned out to be a gay thing.
Sam: What?
Dean: Nothing.

Dean: [on the phone] No, no, Garth. Not a Tool Society. Thule. T-H-U-L-E.

Aaron Bass: A few days after he died, this big box shows up at my apartment. He always said I'd know what to do. Which was crap because when I opened that box... this big, naked potato-faced lunatic wakes up and goes crazy.
The Golem: I didn't go crazy.
Aaron Bass: You trashed my entertainment centre!

Eckhart: Now, which of you is going to tell me where I can find a certain Red Ledger?
Sam: How about you screw yourself, Nazi bastard?
Eckhart: Can we... could we put the Nazi thing aside for the moment... and just talk about this like...
Dean: Nazi necromancer dicks? Pass.

Trivia

The idea of a "golem," a manipulatable soldier made out of magically animated mud or clay created to protect Jews during pogroms or other times of antisemitism, actually is a part of European-Jewish folklore and mythology. The earliest-known written description of a golem's creation dates from the late 1100s or early 1200s. The most famous version of the golem myth comes from 16th century Prague, where a Rabbi named Judah Loew ben Bezalel was fabled to have created a golem to protect Prague's Jews from pogroms. The vast majority of Jewish scholars, even strictly Orthodox ones, see the golem story as a piece of allegorical folklore and not something to be taken seriously in a religious context.

Dean introduces himself as "Agent Bolan". This is, most likely, a nod to Marc Bolan, lead singer of the classic glam-rock band T. Rex.

The Golem's scroll bears the following names in Hebrew (from bottom to top): Rabbi Izaac son of Abraham, Rabbi David son of Jacob, Rabbi Adam son of Benjamin.

Setting for this episode was in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania due to the area's longstanding Jewish population.

Misha Collins' second favorite episode, next to "The French Mistake" (ep. 6.15).

The word Yifalchunbee is meaningless. It isn't in Hebrew, biblical or modern, or in Yiddish (a language that the Jewish people in Europe invented centuries ago so they could communicate even if they are from different countries). The producers probably invented the word especially for the episode.

During the scene when Sam flees from the Thule Society member, one of the books on the shelf as he runs down the aisle bears the Nazi swastika.

Ironically, the Nazis used Israeli-manufactured Uzis when they attacked the brothers in the hotel room.

The opening scene takes place in 1944 but shows a very recent Jeep (Wrangler in US) painted to look like a German military vehicle.

The payphone used at approximately 10 minutes into the episode is the kind of payphone used in Canada and not the USA.

Sam uses an internet search engine to translate German into English. The German text shown is just a bad word-by-word translation of the English text, though Sam supposedly copied it from a book written by a German native speaker.

Sam states that nobody has been in the Men of Letters' headquarters for 65-70 years. Despite this, the place is immaculate and perfectly maintained, with no dust on any of the furniture.

posted by orange swan (12 comments total)

John DeSantis (the Golem) is INSANELY large both as to height (6'9") and girth. The size of his hands alone! He makes Jared Padalecki look like a weedy adolescent. Sam and Dean's reactions to him are hilarious -- they are not used to being physically outmatched. But DeSantis has plainly made his size work for him. He has a very long list of credits on IMDb. He appears in the Supernatural series a total of four times (of which this was the second), though always as a different character.

Love the set up of some stoner slacker twentysomething who has previously lived an ordinary life and dismissed the idea of the supernatural as crazy talk suddenly being saddled with the possession of a golem. I mean, that's a great unlikely buddy comedy set up right there.

The bunker is pretty freaking cool and a great set, though I think the lack of natural light would get to me pretty quickly. Much of the remaining half of the series will play out there. Typically, Sam is reveling in the bunker library and Dean in its comforts and conveniences, as well as the idea that they have a place of their own. But they deserve such a great resource, after such knockabout lives, all the sacrifices they've made, and the lives that they've saved, and the work that they continue to do.

It does defy belief that the bunker would be so clean and well-maintained and that there would be water and electricity (and it continues to be immaculate, despite the fact that we never see Sam and Dean cleaning that huge place and it's a stretch to imagine them doing that, though they do tidy and do dishes), but I suppose it's suggested later on that it's partly achieved by magic. Also... who owns the land it's on? Who is paying the property tax for it?

I always wondered why locate the bunker in Kansas, but yes, it makes sense to have it in the dead centre of the continental U.S., and also to have it somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I wonder if Sam and Dean think of themselves as Kansians and/or as being from Kansas, or as just as drifters.

And, in the thread for the episode in which the Winchesters finally acquire a home of sorts, it seems like a good time to share a couple of links to virtual house tours of Jensen Ackles' and Jared Padalecki's respective homes, with a bonus video of Padalecki's fridge and home gym(s). Both houses are very beautiful and luxurious and worth a look, though of the two I think I prefer the Ackles residence, as it's visually more artistic and interesting.
posted by orange swan at 5:53 AM on October 22, 2021

The Golem is a bit too hairy and human-looking for a vessel of clay, isn’t he? And a bit too talky?

I love Sam warming his hands over the burning necromancer.

The upkeep--both monetary and physical--of the bunker is definitely a question that kind of pulls the viewer out of the story. I really envy a no-dustingr-required, self-cleaning building, and one where I don't have to worry about paying utility bills to keep the lights on and the water running.

It was absolutely no surprise to see Hal Linden in this kind of role, as it seems it's about the only type of role I've seen play in recent years (okay, the supernatural stuff might be a bit outside his usual lane, but rabbis upholding traditions and looking for justice seems to be his current sweet spot).
posted by sardonyx at 6:07 AM on October 22, 2021

orange swan, thanks for posting those videos. In terms of decorating, 'll take the Jensen place with one barely creepy naked doll statue over the Padalecki place and that entire flock of taxidermied domestic fowl. Yeeks! I also love the view of the river.

Jensen didn't have as many clothes in his closet as I was expecting (yes, I know they clean up and spruce things up for these visits, but even still...). Jared seems to be aging well. He's actually softer looking that in his Supernatural days, and I think it suits him better.

I didn't know Architectual Digest did celebrity house tour videos. I get the feeling I'll be spending some of my break time on the mag's channel.
posted by sardonyx at 2:11 PM on October 22, 2021

I thought about mentioning the stuffed chickens thing in my comment, but decided nah, better to let everyone experience that one all on their own. Having lots of money certainly enables people to embrace their weird.
posted by orange swan at 2:25 PM on October 22, 2021

Ain't that the truth!
posted by sardonyx at 2:35 PM on October 22, 2021

I never worried about the bunker's upkeep. Either magic kept the lights on or the boys were still running credit card scams or it was all solar or decades ago the MOL made some arrangement with the government to provide them with utilities... or whatever. (And late in the series, didn't they establish that before Charlie died she'd set up some crazy credit deal for them?) Of course Sam would've totally been the one keeping everything clean, mopping and scrubbing and dusting, while Dean teased him about being the maid.

Did Bass and the Golem really only appear in one episode? They had such a lived-in, buddy comedy dynamic that I could've sworn they were recurring. I loved the Golem, both as a character and the way the actor's makeup made him look just... too... big. Like, I know he's a big guy in real life but with the hands and the body padding and stuff he looked like a henchman out of the Dick Tracy movie or something. He was genuinely unnerving to look at, and watching him scowl at this little slacker guy he was protecting was really fun.

Jensen Ackles is part of the cast of that Alec Baldwin movie that made headlines the other day when Baldwin's prop gun discharged and the cinematographer was killed. Just a grim little FYI.

He's actually softer looking that in his Supernatural days, and I think it suits him better.

Weren't his Supernatural days like six months ago, though? (Unless they filmed all that like a year before it aired. I know the pandemic complicated the hell out of the final season.)

Before forever these threads will catch up with the episodes that were actually covered on Fanfare when the show was airing. Any plans for how that's gonna work?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:35 PM on October 22, 2021

I don't know about the existing FanFare threads, but I'm rapidly coming to the point where I won't be able to keep up with the posting schedule. I'm only as far as the first couple of episodes of season nine. I can't watch one episod every other day, and honestly, I don't think I really want to. I have no desire to rush through this. it's nice having something reliable waiting for me that allows me to turn off my brain and veg after a long or hard day. This show is great for that, especially given just how many episodes there are.

It looks like the show wrapped shooting just over a year ago. I guess I should have clarified my comment to say he looks softer than he did while playing Sam during season eight or during the first half of the show, or something like that.
posted by sardonyx at 2:44 PM on October 22, 2021

I'd be glad if the threads slowed to once a week, honestly. I don't know how many times I've seen a thread, meant to comment, and then the next time I looked the new thread is already going. I just can't keep up!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:31 PM on October 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Maybe twice a week would be a good compromise? That's similar to what the Star Trek rewatch threads were doing (and I think are still doing). It'd allow for some breathing space, but we're only a little over halfway through, there are like 140 episodes left.

This, I think, was where I stopped watching Supernatural during its first run, or at least this is the last episode I remember (and I do remember it fondly).
posted by dinty_moore at 6:30 PM on October 22, 2021

I'll be sticking with my once a day posting schedule until we catch up with the existing episode posts, which run from episode 9.20 through to the finale, episode 15.20. We'll be using those to comment in and everyone can proceed at their own pace. The thing is, with a series this extensive, if we only do an episode once a week, it will take us about three years to get through the remaining episodes, and even twice a week would take us a year and a half. I don't want to be tied down to the endeavour for that long.
posted by orange swan at 7:30 PM on October 22, 2021

I think of the bunker as a late addition but we’re just shy of 50% of the way through, it really was around for half the show.

I really liked Aaron, I liked the actor too. Apparently he pops up again in a few seasons, which I will get to enjoy then since I have absolutely no memory of it the first time. I also like that Aaron, who is not from this world and like two minutes ago watched in horror as Sam and Dean warmed themselves with a burning corpse, tells Dean straight up that it’s not for them to decide what happens to the golem, and taking that life on is a choice he makes.

The show kind of genuflects early on at practical stuff; they talked about credit card scams and hustled pool, they squatted, they brushed their teeth by the side of the road, they lived off road food, they cleaned their guns, they stashed their stuff in random storage units. I definitely would not call it realism or anything close, but you saw kind of how their life was supposed to work. Moving them into a magical Batcave where you never have to think about where the electricity comes from (the frictionless wireless internet!) is only a little change in how much they’re actually explaining or showing ("credit card scam" does a lot of heavy lifting), but because you see so much less of that other stuff, it feels like part of the world of the show overall getting smaller even as the cosmology (for lack of a better word) gets bigger. It opens up some new possibilities, but there are things I miss in the bunker era too. (And I imagine it was kind of nice to have like. sets they could just build and keep using.)

I’ve been barely keeping my head above water with these episodes and would not hate slowing down a tiny bit, but also totally understand not wanting to drag a rewatch on for years. If we did get to a point after 9x20 or whenever where a slightly slower schedule is feasible for folks who want to participate, I’d be in favor. For those playing along at home, I believe we'll get to 9x19 on 11/21 (as it happens, two days after the finale aired last year.) Thanks for raising, and orange swan thanks as always for keeping this going this far.
posted by jameaterblues at 9:37 PM on October 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Jensen Ackles is part of the cast of that Alec Baldwin movie that made headlines the other day when Baldwin's prop gun discharged and the cinematographer was killed. Just a grim little FYI.

Yes. Here's a dark bit of trivia. The Rust shooting is very similar to the shooting of Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow in 1994. In that case, Lee was accidentally fatally shot by an actor named Michael Massee. Massee was in no way to blame for the shooting, but he was so devastated he took a year off from acting. He later said, "I just took a year off and I went back to New York and didn't do anything. I didn't work. What happened to Brandon Lee was a tragic accident and I don't think you ever get over something like that." He had a good long career after he returned to work until he died of stomach cancer in 2016 at the age of 64. In 2007, Massee appeared in two episodes of Supernatural as a character named Kubrick: "Bad Day at Black Rock" (ep. 3.3) and "Fresh Blood" (ep. 3.7). Now Jensen has personally known and worked with two actors who killed someone on set.

Jensen Ackles has posted on his Instagram about the tragedy, sharing a story about Halyna Hutchins, saying that he and his wife Danneel have donated to the AFI scholarship fund set up in Hutchins' name and also to the GoFundMe for the benefit of her husband and son. He included the links for both fundraising efforts in his post and invited others to donate if they are able and wish to.
posted by orange swan at 12:55 PM on October 25, 2021